


Dining Out

by thismaz



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Graphic depiction of grieving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thismaz/pseuds/thismaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman in a fancy restaurant remembers her family. Set during AtS 2.19 Belonging.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dining Out

It was an act of defiance, booking the table at Antonio's. Getting dressed up in the 'little black dress' and the satin shoes with the silver buckles, and wrapping the shawl around her shoulders, was an attempt to fool the world, and herself, that she was well, that she was coping.

As soon as she sat down, she knew it was a mistake. Her sudden, desperate determination to celebrate her birthday had morphed into this crazy decision to revisit the scene of two years before, when she and Tony came to LA to celebrate and Tony gave her the shawl. He'd brought it back from New York, the week before, when he'd gone there on business and he'd presented it to her just as she reached for her coat.

It was a beautiful evening, as they walked from the parking garage to the restaurant, his arm around her shoulders. It was a long way to go, for just an evening, but Tony hadn't minded. He'd understood that she didn't like to be away from home for too long.

As they walked he'd teased her about her reluctance to try shushimi, although he'd also promised that she didn't have to, that Antonio's served a mixed cuisine and there would be plenty of alternatives. Tony had been taken for a real Japanese meal, in Tokyo a few months before, and she knew he wanted to share a segment of the experience with her. So of course she tried it and it was actually not so bad. If she hadn't known, she might never have guessed it was raw fish and the couscous was a reassuringly familiar accompaniment. They'd taken their time over their meal, talking and enjoying the freedom of being out, alone, in the big city.

So here she was, two years later, sitting in Antonio's, feeling the eyes of the other diners on her, appraising her with varying degrees of pity and disdain. She knew what they were thinking as they looked - Antonio's just wasn't the kind of place where a women in her thirties came to eat alone. Or if they did, they looked either desperate or pathetic - as pathetic as she felt, most days.

Sarah looked across the room and was caught by her reflection in the large mirror on the opposite wall. Was that her face? The woman staring back at her looked so tired, so worn. She was a woman older than her years, with flat, unfashionably trimmed hair and lines around her cheeks and jaw where she'd lost too much weight too quickly and never put it back on.

Yes, it was her. Old and broken before her time. She picked at her grilled Cornish game hens with lemon, sumac, and date relish. The move to LA had seemed like such a good idea at the time. One of the advantages of working for a big bank was that they had branches right across the state and her manager had understood her need to get out, to move on. He'd supported her request for the transfer she had intended as a new start.

Gazing at the empty chair opposite, where Tony should have been sitting if her life had gone the way it was supposed to have gone, Sarah remembered those eternally sunny days of high school, when she first met him. In high school she'd been so young and full of hope and promise. She'd been popular and beautiful, and Tony had been captain of the swim team. It was inevitable they start dating. Their first evening together, on the beach, they'd left the party behind and walked barefoot along the edge of the water, letting the soft pull of the waves tug the sand from under their feet, just talking. Tony had been funny and admiring and, as the hours whiled away in laughter and confidences, they'd discovered that they were made for each other.

Seven years later they were married. Ten years after that, he was gone. Everything was gone and her life was lying in ruins at her feet.

So she moved to LA for a new start. Now, looking around the restaurant, seeing the young lovers grabbing a meal before going to a show, or a concert, the older, married couples dawdling over their food, secure in their shared lives, the small group of friends celebrating a promotion, or some such happy event, she wondered if she hadn't just been running away.

Tony wasn't there. He would never be there again. She was alone in an expensive restaurant on her birthday. Why had she thought this was a good idea? Two years was as nothing when her heart still had a fissure as wide as the Grand Canyon running through it. She'd told her family, her friends, that she needed to get away from the memories if she was to forge a future for herself. Looking around now at the scene of her last good memory, she realised that it had not been a step forward into the light. She was still hiding. She was hiding from the rest of her family in her apartment, here in LA, hiding in plain sight in her job, where she bustled around the office, taking refuge in her efficiency, hiding from herself behind the mask of coping, moving on and resignation. Until she came here and was faced by the reality she had been avoiding for so long.

Abruptly it was too much - the meal, the restaurant, the expensive air of exclusivity, the whole stupid idea of her celebrating anything, especially her birthday. The memory of the awful ending to that night rose in her throat to choke her. Jerkily, she got to her feet, leaving her barely touched plate.

A waiter immediately rushed to her side asking solicitous questions. She blinked hard to keep the tears from falling and pressed her hand to her eyes. "No, I, I just don't feel very well, suddenly. I need to go home. Could you call me a cab?"

He hurried off, probably eager to get an ill woman out of sight of other diners and free up her table. Sarah grabbed her purse, looped the strap over her shoulder and followed.

As she weaved her way between the tables, trying to keep from running, eager for nothing except to escape, the man who grabbed her seemed to come from nowhere. He wrenched her around to face him. He was tall and dark, dressed in black, and part of her mind registered that he was young and handsome, but his voice was angry as he reached out and took hold of her shawl. "Isn't this interesting?" he said, and something in his tone sent cold shivers down Sarah's spine.

"Wha-what?" she stuttered, trying to pull it away from him without appearing too rude. "My shawl?"

He pawed at the fabric, his tone harsh with accusation and again she tried to pull away. "No, your Brahenian Battle-shroud, woven from the skin of dead children."

Dead children? Sarah thought she was going to be sick. Dead children. Her children. Beth and Josh, lying so peacefully in their beds, teddy bear clutched close in Beth's little arms, Josh stretched out on his back, bed clothes neatly under his chin. For months after she'd wondered at the fact that she noticed that first, but it was so unlike him. Josh was never still in his sleep, as he'd never been still in her womb, and the bedclothes always needed to be picked up off the floor and pulled back over him. She'd known he was dead, before she reached out to touch his cold neck, searching uselessly for a pulse.

It could have been a moment, or an hour, before her mind registered Tony on the floor with the babysitter in his arms. They were laid out so artfully, as if they were alive, merely sleeping. She remembered turning from Josh's bed and seeing them there, an incredulous laugh escaping her at the stupidity of the scene, because Tony would never have betrayed her with little Jenny...

The next while was fragmented in her memories. Apparently, she'd made it to the phone and called 911, but the next thing she knew, was when she was back at Josh's bed, staring down at his peaceful face. That was where the police found her, when they broke down the door to enter.

The questioning had lasted for hours, but she had no answers for them, as they had none for her. The thought had circled round and around in her head - who would do such a thing? It was only days later that she wondered, if she had not needed to use the bathroom as they entered the house, would she have also been part of that grotesque tableau?

The strange man's words interrupted her tortured memories. "You think I don't know a Voltar Witch when I see one?" he asked and Sarah tried to step back, shaking her head, but was trapped between him and the table behind her, and still he refused to release her shawl. "You don't think I can't see the markings of a..." She looked up into his face as he hesitated. "Looks a little different up close," he added uncertainly.

Eventually the police had let her go. They never caught the perpetrator. From the start she'd known that they wouldn't. It was so obvious that they were baffled and almost... apathetic. Sarah paused as that word clarified her overwhelming impression of the Sunnydale Police Force, for the first time.

A young woman's voice penetrated her shocked realisation. "It's a beautiful shawl, ma'am. It's a beautiful, thousand dollar, Laura Mina original." She laughed at the man, although there was a glare there too.

Even as she smiled and nodded Sarah noted the embarrassment on their faces, but they seemed distant, involved with someone else's situation.

Turning back to Sarah, the young woman smiled again. "My friend just loves beautiful things," she explained. "So much, he can't control himself. Because he's, ahm, from France. We're so sorry. So sorry."

Sarah watched as the girl pulled her French friend back to their table, then dismissed them from her mind. LA was full of strange people and they had nothing to do with her. She hurried towards the concierge's desk to pay the check, hoping that the waiter had found her a cab so she wouldn't have to wait. She needed to go home. She needed to hide.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in July 2008 for tamingthemuse prompt 104 - Cuisine
> 
> Some dialogue borrowed and adapted from AtS 2.19 Belonging.
> 
> Comments are greatly appreciated, loved and cherished, here or [at my Livejournal](http://thismaz.livejournal.com/37131.html)


End file.
